Little is known of Ganioda’yo’s life before he became a prophet of Gai’wiio. He had been an alcoholic and purportedly lived a dissolute life. In 1799 he became seriously ill and was near death. Upon his recovery he declared that he had been visited by three spirits who revealed to him the will of the divine Creator. From 1800, as an itinerant preacher of Gai’wiio, he urged his people to refrain from adultery, drunkenness, laziness, and witchcraft, and his renown grew among the Iroquois. In his later years, however, he fell into disrepute for reasons that remain unclear. His Good Message was renewed some 15 years after his death by his direct descendant, Jemmy Johnson.

From the early 21st century, Ganioda’yo’s teachings, collected in the Code of Handsome Lake, were read biennially at every Iroquois longhouse and annually at the Six Nations meeting at Tonawanda Longhouse in New York state.

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North American Indians of the Iroquoian linguistic group who lived in what is now western New York state and eastern Ohio. They were the largest of the original five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, in which they were represented by eight chiefs. In the autumn small parties of Seneca men left...

new religious movement that emerged among the Seneca Indians of the northeastern United States, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, in the early 19th century. Its founder was a Seneca chief, healer, and prophet whose epithet was Ganioda’yo (“Handsome Lake”).

any member of the North American Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family —notably the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. The peoples who spoke Iroquoian languages occupied a continuous territory around Lakes Ontario, Huron, and Erie,...